Wildfires
by NoraVonGikkingen
Summary: (Crossover in which MSGTW's events are set in Lolita's late 40s and Smith has a twin brother) When sixteen year-old Dolores Haze returns to Camp Q after escaping Quilty, she finds out that it has been replaced by a mixed Rangers camp which has no other chief but twenty-eight year-old, disillusioned Jefferson Smith... but will his disappointment resist Lo's radiance?
1. Prologue

There she was, her bare skin all wrapped up in the coarse flannelette blanket and her hands wandering about on either side of Jefferson Smith's beautiful, sleeping face. Asleep! For the first time in his existence, he had not been awakened by the sun – It seemed that his flushed cheeks were floating in the mist of Lo's breathing as into the recesses of the foggiest dreams. Lost in eternal fantasy, she let herself imagine the two of them in the middle of the desert, barely awake under the flap of an imperial tent, kissing, with their faces against the wind. Like in that black and white film among all the ones she had seen with Hum on their trip to nowhere.

Smith's eyelids shuddered when Lo placed her soft palms against his collarbone, and his own hands, empty and still unclenched, suddenly searched for her thighs in feverish excitement. Aroused, she responded with her biggest smile for him to see, and a relaxed laugh escaped her lips; Smith's blue orbs swung open as the thing started to ask for much more space inside. "Oh," thought him, his irises warm and drowsy upon Lo's big, glossy mouth. "It is as if desire were dancing the Charleston with my soul!"

She could not see, but pictured the golden sunlight trickling in the pleats of the canvas, and the children surrounding it in their shorts and knee-length socks, while they had just stirred naked in the arms of the woods; besieging this precious snapshot of hunger and febrile strokes on kindled flesh, without even knowing what had occurred in that very tent.

They faced each other, Lo lying on top, her left hand on his unclothed shoulder. Jefferson smiled, and leant his head forward for his full lips to be able to brush hers. They tasted hazelnuts, and love.

"Well, hello" said Lo, letting her fingers stream in Smith's dark heap of hair.

"Good morning, beautiful" he answered.

There was an expected silence, which allowed them to hear the passionate shrieks of a flock of wagtails, and Lo nestled against Smith's chest like a group of Rangers huddling around a campfire, while her avid fingertips traced the smooth bridge of his nose in most childlike amazement. She glided to his side to make him understand that she desired him on top; he swiftly laid her on her back, and covered her body with all his length, clothing her like a hot, comfortable throw.

"You know I love you, don't you?" he murmured, playing with the lovely dimples on her cheeks, and smiling contentedly to express his wonder.

"I know" replied Lo, pressing her waist to his.

"You are the prettiest thing I've ever come across."

"It is _you_ I've come across", she corrected, gently kissing the top of his fingers.

"Do you love me, Dolores?" he asked, growing more and more impatient at the thought of necking her open mouth again.

"If I love you?" she giggled. "Great God, Jefferson Smith, no girl could ever cherish you more!"

Then their concealed glances were so visible, and the silence of their gestures so loud, that they could hear the boys and girls gossiping outside the tent; Lo was not afraid. Did Jefferson Smith's inclination matter to them? She was not the little girl Hum had always prevented her from being; she was now the young adult he had always prevented her from becoming. Smith loved her dearly, and she loved him – 'how did it all start?' she asked herself. 'How could he fall in love with the spoiled wreck I am?'

Listen, you, the stranger who was offered the intimacy of Lo and Smith's tent; and you will know, you will know everything.


	2. Lolita, it's not your fault

**Chapter 1**

It was during the summer of 1950 that fifteen and a half Dolores Haze's turmoil was put to an end. She was then confined in one of Clare Quilty's vacation houses, and vainly attempted to occupy herself by rereading old and silly Hollywood magazines – when he did not call on her. Sometimes, she could hear the mechanical buzzing of important guests, and sometimes she was invited to join them; at saturday-night parties, she would take great care not to be confronted with the effects of alcohol, and only worked on lemonade and cherry cola. When she appeared to the guests down the great staircase in her expensive dresses – and only one bought by Hum before her escape, which did not fit her anymore – one could not help but stare at the gorgeous young girl she was, and detail the remains of a not-so-far nymphet age; her features were still languid, and her ways still rude, despite the weight of Hum and Quilty's everlasting punishment. 'Some say she is his secret daughter; well, what I can see is that she does not look miserable. I've never seen a girl enjoy company more than she does' one would say to another amid the furious uproar of the party.

And how miserable was she! She had spent more than three year in thrall of two different men; escaped the first, but been unable to elude the second's surveillance; had to cope with her own mother's death, and been deceived by the only one who could have pretended to a decent fatherhood. What could she expect to get from life now? "At least shelter" she thought when, pushing all her apprehensions aside, she left the manor unnoticed on a hot saturday night. How did she do it properly? Well, Quilty introduced her to a bunch of unknown guests and, as soon as he had disappeared from her view, she took one of the three or four men aside (the one in whom she felt the most confident) and they went for a quick walk in the park, far from the shambles of the party.

His name was Richard Smith; he could have been thirty years old, or a bit less; he was very tall, and somewhat gangly; he had a soothing voice and serene blue eyes; but most of all, he was absolutely mesmerized by Dolores, and had made it a point of honor to wrap her in his black jacket in twenty-five degrees, thinking that she might catch a cold. He was the kindest man she had ever had the chance to meet, and not all those Humberts in whom she had blindly trusted and who had covered her with the shawl of jealousy and crime; he was the one who, on that very night of July, helped her to find the path of a life that she had just started. The gentle lines of his face reminded her of someone else – but who?

They walked in circles around the manor, Lo casting quick glances at the open windows and Richard taking no notice about nothing but her lazy, insolent lips which swayed, like a couple of dancers in a musical, from side to side in the twilight; then she told him.

"I'm not Quilty's daughter," she only said in a short breath, and sat on the stairs just behind the cellar.

Richard took her hand and sighed.

"You know" he murmured to her, "I made the acquaintance of Clare a few years ago, in a girls camp."

"Tell me, you're not a creepy paedophile, are you, Rich?" she asked in a low voice.

"I'm not; I was fetching my little sister on my way back home. I was a boy-scout myself, and I used to keep an eye on the Cubs during my gap year, just after graduating, ten years ago. I was just about to say that I knew Quilty's penchant for very, very young girls... which I hopefully don't approve."

"Then why are you smirking like a seven-year-old when I look at you?" Lo asked, her foot thumping the ground to the rhythm of the music inside.

"You... you're not what they call a 'nymphet'! You just look like a beautiful sixteen year-old girl, which is not..." he tried.

"Fifteen and a half. Well, fifteen and three quarters to be precise" she exclaimed.

"That's not an age for a paedophile, is it?"

"I believe you're right, I'm not a nymphet anymore," she admitted, her eyes wandering down on her full thighs and breasts – which were now a woman's and not a girl's. "But I was once; and it led me to my ruin."

"Lolita, it's not your fault -"

"Don't you ever dare to call me by this name again!" she cried, and turned away from him.

He put a gentle hand upon her trembling shoulder.

"Isn't that your name?" he asked with great innocence in his voice.

"The exact one I was given by a _murderer_." she sobbed, and plunged into his welcoming chest. She lifted her eyes up; met Richard's; he felt desire crawl from his heart to the edge of his painful lips. He bit them with his teeth; his Queen tongue began to express her impatience in the closed palace of his mouth.

"Dolores Haze, that's my real name." Then she inquired: "Do you think Quilty wants to replace me? Am I too old for him now?"

"Yes, I think so. But he hasn't told you yet, he wants to keep you close... He's a bit lazy, and you still... satisfy him."

"Then it reassures me. Being aware of it won't make me want to stay any longer."

She placed a kiss on his chin; he shuddered like a pine tree teased by a summer wind, and took her mouth into his wobbling lips passionately in return.

"I'm leaving tonight, and you can help me, right?"

"O... of course, Dolores. Of course. You look sweet..."

"Shh. Let us not waste time, Quilty might be looking for us."

They left the manor at midnight, and Lo did not even have to trick Quilty: she departed as easily as he had, a few months ago, let her in. He did not seem to be spying on her; she felt free at last when Richard Smith, who had been blessed with the crude but uplifting sensation of being absorbed by desire's fluffiest cloud, opened the door of his car, placed there the small, pink suitcase which she had hidden earlier in the bushes, and invited her to join him in the front seat for a five-hour trip to Ramsdale, New Hampshire. She herself made the request of seeing the house that had watched her grow up along with her late mother, for whom, even if she knew that she sometimes used to be rude to her, her mended heart kept a warm and secret space. Richard told her that he lived twenty miles from Ramsdale, and that they area held no secrets for him; two months ago, he had purchased a comfortable house, in which lived Sophie, his to-become wife, and his mother who paid them regular visits. He went on talking about his marriage, notably about his feelings for his future spouse now that he had found in Lo the soulmate, the missing piece, the arrow of desire whom he had thought he would have never been able to find, all in one. "This is a wedding of convenience." he explained to her. "Mother wanted me to marry; my brother's attempt was a complete failure, she thinks he'll remain a bachelor for all his life... and so she thinks that she can rely on Sophie and me to give her grandchildren she can raise. She loves children, and it's been two years since my brother's gone..." he said, blushing violently when he met Dolores's gaze. He thought his behaviour was silly, inappropriate of an engaged man; he had never believed in love at first sight, but it seemed that Lo had struck him and left him face to face with the mad sensation of loosing control over what he was confiding to her. "I'd rather... have those children... with someone like you, Dolores. Listen, I know this sounds crazy. We've just met, you're barely sixteen, I'm twenty-eight, but I feel this... thing" he admitted, clearing his throat and trying to conceal the fire eating away his cheeks.

"You were talking about your brother" Lo said to escape the subject. "What is it that failed?"

"He was in love with his secretary. A gorgeous young woman named Clarissa Saunders. They mutually proposed on the day his bill was approved by the Senate."

"Your brother is a senator? Golly, that's insane!" she exclaimed, stretching her bare legs onto the dashboard.

"Are you interested in politics?" he asked her, biting his lower lip, forcing himself not to lay his smooth hand on her cold calves. Under the light of the stars, he could distinguish the ruffled peach fuzz of her thighs.

"I don't even know how the Senate works," she muttered. "But I've learnt the names of all presidents. Believe me, there's nothing else to do when you're cloistered in a manor in the summertime with restricted access to the park. But getting back to your brother and this Clarissa, what happened exactly?"

"I don't really know, he never told me" he said gravely. "It's her who broke the match, and he felt bad about it... he says he'll never find someone like Saunders ever again."

"What's his name?"

"Jeff. Jefferson Smith."

"Oh, I know him – well, it's him you reminded me of earlier" she exclaimed, tracing Richard's oval jawline with her index, smiling. "There were pictures of him in the newspapers about two years ago; I remember Humbert had bought me one of these at a station in Pennsylvania. He'd been my only fantasy until Hum made the newspaper disappear a couple of weeks later. You two look perfectly alike..."

"We are twins, actually. And don't tickle me like this, I can barely drive straight" he laughed, pushing back her hand and trying not to feel aroused. "Who's this... Humbert?" he asked.

"The last husband of my mother. Head over heels in love with the twelve year-old Dolly I used to be... he kept a diary in which he would discharge all the lust I inspired him. My mother died while I was away in a girls' camp; Humbert officialy became my father and dragged me through the Midwest for several months. We settled once, in Beardsley, but ran away shortly after, until I left him for Quilty. I don't know how to describe the relationship we had. I feel as guilty myself as I know he is responsible for what he's done. It's not logical."

"Did he abuse you?"

"Of course he did; he's the 'murderer' I talked to you about, the one who always called me Lolita. I'm conviced that he killed my mother to have full control over me. He also killed my childhood."

She could not hold back her tears as the electric blue sign of a gas station blinded her, bringing bittersweet memories along. They were now at the border between Connecticut and Massachussets.

"He would rape me, and I would earn money from it. I feel like my body will remain filthy for ever after what they've both done. But I liked Humbert. I was in love with him, until, until..."

"Listen, love" Richard murmured, and pulled the car over. "This won't happen again. I'm here to protect you from these bloodsuckers, understood?"

He dried her eyes, and his hands shyly explored her doll-like face as she did the same with the line of his neck. She nodded and said:

"You can restart the engine, I'd like to see Ramsdale by tomorrow."

"Alright, but get some sleep."

Useless was this command; she was already in a slumber when he hit the road again.


End file.
